


I will cry for the desert

by ThatOnePlatypus



Series: Deep space and distant stars [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Space AU, Sunagakure | Hidden Sand Village
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 14:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17920955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatOnePlatypus/pseuds/ThatOnePlatypus
Summary: Gaara arrives to the city hall to find Elder Chiyo waiting for him on the steps.





	I will cry for the desert

**Author's Note:**

> The second part written for the Space AU. As you may have guessed, this AU isn't going to be written in chronological order. At all.

The sun is lowering in the sky, painting the buildings in golds and reds, when Gaara ventures out of the cool shadows of his home. The streets are getting busy, the temperatures finally dropping to a reasonable degree. Everyone living on Suna may be used to the extreme heat of the day, and the extreme cold of the night, but it doesn’t mean they want to expose themselves to it if they can avoid it.

Gaara greets everyone as he walks by, and revels in the smiles and greetings he gets back. It took him a while, to gain the trust of his people, but it was worth it.

“Gaara-sama!” A young flat bread maker hails him from her stand, smiling widely. “Are the sands quiet today?”

“Quiet enough,” Gaara replies, smiling back and accepting a piece of bread from her hand. “There’s a storm rising to the east, but it shouldn’t hit us before two days.”

“Then I’m not worried,” the vendor tells him, and laughs, “Temari-sama will be back by then to protect us.”

Gaara can’t help the softening of his smile, even as he cautions the bread maker to still be careful. Sandstorms are never harmless, even with their wind-tamer’s squad’s protection.

Bidding the vendor goodbye, Gaara munches on his piece of bread as he walks towards the city hall. In the back of his mind, the desert shifts and stirs, but does not speak. Shukaku is asleep, lazy as a curled cat in a pot, blessing Gaara’s mind with quiet.

It won’t last long, he knows. When the storm hits, Shukaku will be awake and howling, keeping him awake with his odes to the violent winds.

Until then, though, Gaara relishes in the quiet.

One would expect the desert to be quiet enough for his tastes already, but unlike most, Gaara has never truly known silence. Shukaku has been speaking to him as long as he can remember, and he can’t imagine what it must be like to not have this awareness of the sands and the hiss of the dunes at the back of his mind, a constant lullaby. Once, he would have liked to know, but now he’s not so sure anymore.

Gaara arrives to the city hall to find Elder Chiyo waiting for him on the steps.

The sight of her wrinkled face is enough to make him tense, staining his peaceful mood with trepidation. Nothing good ever comes from the elder leaving the underground oasis.

“Elder,” he greets, slowly climbing the steps to meet her, “Has something happened?”

“Yes,” she says, and then because she was never one to mince her words. “Your father is dead.”

It feels as though Gaara has been punched in the stomach. He stares, stares, stares, and feels the sand hiss in displeasure at the back of his mind, sensing his turmoil.

“Dead,” he echoes.

He tries to recall the parameters of his father’s mission. A simple diplomatic trip to the neighbouring system, to their long-standing ally, the colony of Konoha. There is no simpler journey, no safer either. His father had left with Baki, and a whole garrison of guards.

He had left with Temari, as well, and Gaara’s heart stops beating for a single, breathless moment.

“My sister?” He asks, staring at Elder’s Chiyo’s wrinkled face. There’s little sympathy there, but then again the Elder only ever shows little positive emotion. “Elder, what about Temari?”

“She’s the one who sent the message,” Elder Chiyo tells him, and Gaara almost slumps in relief. The Elder gestures for him to follow, and he does, getting inside the city hall. “She will be back later today, with those who survived.”

Gaara nods, and in the back of his head he can feel Shukaku stir again. There’s a deep hum there, sleepy but awake, and Gaara would pay it attention if there wasn’t more pressing matter to attend than the demon.

“What happened?” Gaara doesn’t like the thought, but he must ask, “Did Konoha betray us?”

“Hardly,” Elder Chiyo says. “That old Sarutobi fool is dead as well.” Gaara almost falters in his steps. The Hokage is dead too? Chiyo goes on, “The fault lies on that silent rattlesnake, Orochimaru, or so it seems. Konoha is calling for blood.”

“Orochimaru has dens on every moon of the universe,” Gaara notes.

“Yes,” Elder Chiyo says, and smiles a mean little smile. “If they try to hunt him down, Konoha will step on many toes in the process.” She looks at him, and advises. “We must tread carefully. Suna is strong, but we cannot afford a war. You must prepare, Gaara.”

Gaara doesn’t reply, dread a heavy stone in his stomach.

At the back of his mind, Shukaku grins, a sharp void like crystals of salt in underground mines.

_Let them come_ , the sand’s voice sizzles like water poured on a stone in the sun, _let them come, and let them die._

Gaara would rather not stain his home red with blood, even if the sand would absorb it. He doesn’t tell the demon that, although Shukaku is always aware of it, and instead turns to the Elder.

“I will be ready,” he says, because he will be. If war comes to their door, he will be ready to greet it with death. “But who will lead us?”

Chiyo stares at him, flat, but Gaara shakes his head.

“I’m desert-speaker,” he reminds her, staring back just as flatly. “The last one. I cannot lead. I cannot _leave_.”

“You’re also the last sand-charmer,” Chiyo reminds him. “It’s traditional.”

Gaara frowns. It is, he knows. His father was the sand-charmer, and so were every leader of Suna before him.

Except tradition also states that the desert-speaker cannot lead. Gaara’s mother was the last one, before his birth, and by dying as he drew his first breath, she made sure he would also be the youngest desert-speaker in Suna’s history.

Some days, Gaara resents her a little for that. Most days, he wishes she would still be there, to teach him like he should have been taught, how to shoulder the responsibility of having a demon in your head.

“Tradition is contradicting itself on that,” Gaara points out.

Elder Chiyo purses her lips. She nods, tersely, admitting the point. Once upon a time, there were enough sand charmers in Suna that the problem wouldn’t arise. But Gaara is the last.

“We’ll hold council to decide how to proceed,” Edler Chiyo finally says. “The moment your sister is back, and your brother-”

“You called Kankuro back?” Gaara says, startled.

“He’s first in line, no matter if he chose the puppet fleet,” Elder Chiyo says, glaring at him for interrupting. “Besides, the funeral cannot be held without him. We’ll hold it first, then the council.”

Gaara nods, heart heavy. To see his brother again, after so many months, under such circumstances- It will be bittersweet.

“Gaara,” Elder Chiyo says suddenly, her cold eyes pining him. “Do not forget. Your duty is to your people first.”

Gaara stares back.

For a moment, he feels five years old again.

Five and lonely, wandering the desert on his own at night, knowing nothing could touch him. His brother gone to study puppeteer arts and hoping to join the fleet to get away from him. His sister riding the winds high enough that he couldn’t see her. His father never present except to remind him that his duty to his people came first.

At the time, Gaara had felt like just another grain of sand, drowned into the cruel sea that was the immense desert.

He feels a little like that again, under Elder Chiyo’s gaze. Small and lost, a speck of dust in the enormity of the universe.

But Gaara isn’t five. He’s sixteen, and he has grown, and he’s not lonely anymore. And he might feel small some days, because the universe is still so very big, but he doesn’t fear the desert any more.

“Of course,” Gaara says simply. “I wouldn’t forget, Elder.”

He doesn’t fear the desert.

He _is_ the desert.

 

 

 

Sakura finds that Suna’s leader, Gaara, is rather sweet. He has a soft voice, if a little raspy, a clear eyes the colour of water, and smiles at them and at Naruto especially as they walk.

Suna itself isn’t very remarkable. Different from Konoha, of course, and every new thing is beautiful in it’s novelty, but still. Sakura thinks she would get tired quickly of the sand coloured buildings, the few orange rocks, and the endless dunes that stretch and stretch on the horizon.

In the local dialect, Kakashi-sensei had told them, Suna means sand. Not very imaginative, but at least pretty accurate, as far as names go.

She wonders if it’s the lack of creativity in the scenery that push people from Suna to join the colourful and odd puppet fleet that greeted them when they approached the planet. Kankuro, with his purple markings, certainly stands out more than his siblings – Gaara may be dressed in rust red, but in the end it’s a shade that many rocks in the area have, and Temari’s hair is the same shade as the sand.

Even the city hall, she finds, is boring, with very little in the way of decoration except for a few statues and engravings in the walls. At least it’s cool inside, a welcome change to the dry heat of the desert.

“Speak,” Gaara finally bids them, the moment they are all seated at an oval stone table. “You came to report a threat to Suna?”

Sakura turns to Kakashi-sensei, but the lazy man is lounging in his chair, nose buried in his book. Sakura takes a deep breath and does not hit him.

“Yes, Kazekage-sama,” Sakura says, since apparently it’s up to her and Naruto to speak, and she doesn’t trust her teammate not to cause an incident. “Do you know of the group Akatsuki?”

“Vaguely,” Gaara replies, turning towards his siblings and the few Elders watching. “A band of rogues, mercenaries offering their services to every system for high pay.”

“Yes,” Sakura agrees. “However, it seems their goal have changed, or at least shifted. Two of the Akatsuki tried to attack us on Tanzaku-gai. Their goal was the Elder Beast of Nine Tails.”

Immediately, everyone in the room stiffened. Naruto chooses this moment to nod, oddly serious.

“I’m the Nine tail’s host,” he reveals, and Sakura twitches in aggravation – _don’t go spilling Konoha secrets so lightly, idiot, even to allies!_ “When they failed to capture me, we figured that other hosts may be in danger still.”

“So you came here,” Temari says coolly.

“Suna is said to host the Elder Beast of the One Tail,” Sakura says respectfully, kicking Naruto under the table. “As you are Konoha’s allies, we thought it more courteous to warn you.”

“No need!” One of the Elders scoffs. “Only Suna born and bred people know where the Elder Beast is, and who hosts it. The Akatsuki wouldn’t know.”

“So we thought too, about the Nine Tail,” Sakura says delicately, “But the Akatsuki knew. One of their members is Uchiha Itachi.”

“A Konoha traitor,” that same elder says, eyes narrowing.

“Yes,” Sakura says, and quickly adds before accusations can come flying. “And we’ve learned from secure sources that one of their other members is none other than Sasori of the Red Sand.”

The name has the desired effect. Immediately, everyone around the table descends into rapid fire outraged arguments in the local speech. Sakura’s translator piece can only pick up one word in ten, and that much isn’t very useful.

Suna’s isolation policies do help their secrecy, it seems, even if it helps little else.

But, with Sasori, one of Suna’s most famous puppet fleet admiral – and the third Kazekage’s prized apprentice, turned traitor – in the picture, whatever secrets Suna keeps aren’t so safe anymore.

“They still won’t know who the host is, unless we have another traitor,” Kankuro says, once everyone has calmed slightly. His expression is dark, “Which isn’t an impossibility. But that point is moot – do they have a way to capture the Elder Beast itself, without the host, as long as they know where it is?”

He’s staring straight at Naruto when he asks, and so it’s Naruto who answers, grimly nodding. The term ‘host’ is a deceiving one, as no Beast Host actually hosts anything except for a mental connection to an Elder Beast. Where the Nine Tail actually is hidden, only Naruto and the Hokage know. Even Sakura doesn’t know, which is for the best.

Kisame had boasted that they don’t need the host, they just need the Beast – and that means they can capture an Elder Beast, somehow, even without the host.

“Shit,” Kankuro swears. He turns to his brother, “What do we do?”

“We have no choice,” Gaara replies grimly. “We will have to evacuate Suna, as long as the threat isn’t gone.”

“Evacuate?” Kakashi-sensei, until then happy to lean back in his seat and watch the chaos unfold while he reads his trashy porn, says, single eye sharp. “That seems a little overcautious.”

“What happens to the Beasts, once captured?” Gaara retorts, staring Kakashi-sensei in the eye, a defiance that Sakura wants to applaud. Not many dare to do that, and Gaara is her age.

Of course, Gaara is also the Kazekage, leader of this solar system. They are worlds apart.

“We don’t know,” Sakura replies when Kakashi says silent. “We think they vanish. Or, depending what form they take when in hiding, they may self-destruct.”

“That’s what I feared,” Gaara nods. “The One Tail destructing would put my people at risk.” He turns to his council. “Start notifying our neighbours. We’ll relocate everyone to our system’s other planets as long as the Akatsuki is a threat.”

“Does that mean that your Elder Beast is hidden near from this planet?” Naruto dares to ask, curious. He jumps a little on his seat, “Oh, oh, is it one of your moons? Or, or, the asteroid belt we saw? Or that small sun near the bigger one?”

Those, Sakura thinks, a little nervous, are scary ideas. She doesn’t know what form an Elder Beast takes, when hiding. Tsunade-sama told her they could become anything, from a single grain of sand to an entire galaxy. The idea that one of Suna’s moons, or suns, could be the One Tail... If true, it would indeed be wiser to evacuate – if any of these things self-destruct, Suna would be hit gravely.

Kakashi-sensei seems thoughtful.

“Or did you perhaps hide it somewhere on this very planet?” He wonders. “There was a rumour that it hid as a teapot.”

As one, everyone turns to stare at the innocent teapot at the center of the table. Sakura _dearly_ hopes not.

“Who knows,” Gaara says, his expression neutral. “You may be allies, and Suna appreciates your warning. But this is a Suna matter, and a Suna secret. You would do well to remember your place.”

He turns to his council, and nods once, standing up. Everyone follows his lead, Temari leaving briskly, barking orders at guards and people wearing the same uniform as her.

Wind-riders, Sakura thinks. Or wind-breakers. She can’t recall the exact name.

It grates, that constant reminder that her prized education has so many holes where it concerns other systems’ culture.

“Will you need any aid for the evacuation?” Kakashi inquires, even as Baki starts to steer them towards the exit, to leave the Suna council to deal with the situation.

“No need,” Gaara says back, interrupting his talk with his brother to look over at them. “But Suna appreciates the offer. You are free to explore the city for as long as it takes to start evacuating.”

“Thank you, Kazekage-sama,” Sakura replies, when neither her teammate nor her rude sensei seem to talk.

Then, grabbing the both of them, she drags them out of the room, and into the hall.

If this is the last chance they ever have to visit Suna, then they shouldn’t waste it.

 

 

 

Sakura can’t help but stare at Suna as their ship slowly gets away from it. They are riding with the Kazekage and his family, all of them at the windows to get one last look at the sand-coloured planet. Temari is stone-faced next to her brother, Gaara’s knuckles white on the edge of the window.

Sakura can’t imagine what it must be like, for the Kazekage to have to relocate to another planet. Sure, all of them fall under his jurisdiction, but in the end Suna was the main one, was his home.

She tries to picture leaving Konoha, and being uncertain that she’ll ever see it again, and has to swallow a wave of home-sickness.

Kankuro isn’t in the ship. His own puppet ship, Karasu, is flying around them with the other puppet fleet ships. Like every puppet ship, it looks odd and distorted, as if scrapped together by a child’s hand with only a vague idea of what a space-ship must look like. Not a single one of those ships looks the same, but all of them share one singularity – they all look like nightmarish creatures, odd and deadly.

Then suddenly, one such ship appears in the distance, almost too far to see, headed towards Suna. The shape is reminiscent of that of a scorpion, and it’s painted red and black.

“Sasori,” Elder Chiyo breathes out, trembling with something that looks like both grief and anger.

Right behind it, a more voluminous ship follows. It’s a pale grey, but on the side is a black square with a red cloud painted on nonetheless, small but distinct.

“That’s an Iwa bomber ship,” Kakashi notes darkly. “We need to be careful.”

“If they notice us, one single bomb could annihilate our entire fleet,” Temari agrees, tense.

Gaara seems even tenser now, his usual calm expression gone. Instead, there’s something wild in his eyes, as he grips the edge even tighter. He watches as the ships near Suna.

“Does Sasori know where, on the planet, you hid the Beast?” Kakashi asks, watching as the ships keep their course to the planet – thus confirming that the Beast is indeed somewhere in the desert.

Gaara doesn’t reply. It’s Chiyo who nods tensely.

“Everyone living in Suna knows, even if vaguely,” she tells them. “Some might be too dumb to figure it out, but Sasori always was too clever.”

“Where is it, then?” Naruto asks, too curious for his own good. “Underground? In a random dune?”

Before anyone can reply, there are gasps from every spectator. Both ships have paused almost in the planet’s orbit, and are in the process of deploying _something_.

It’s luminous, and looks like sealing chains, but different, and Sakura has never seen the like before.

At that very moment, Gaara lets out a hoarse sound, and stumbles, digging his hand in his hair. Temari catches him quickly, and then with wide alarmed eyes turns back to Suna.

“Shit,” she breathes.

Sakura is inclined to agree, but can’t find it in herself to say anything, gaping.

There is a huge tail unwrapping from around Suna, made of sand and ink-like markings. As she watches, the very planet seems to crack open. A gigantic maw, with teeth like mountains, opens wide, and luminescent golden eyes pierce the Akatsuki ships.

Even as the two ships beat a hasty retreat a bit further away from the tail lashing out at them, their device still glowing, Sakura can’t help but stare.

They didn’t hide the Beast on Suna she realizes, breathless.

The Beast _is_ Suna.

She turns to look at Gaara, and finds his eyes black and gold, an eerie reflection of the demon’s in the window.

“ _Shukaku_ ,” he rasps, and Temari flinches against his side but doesn’t let him go – if anything, she tightens her hold on her brother. “ _Eat them._ ”

And with a great roar, the whole planet seems to leap at the Akatsuki ships, maw open wide.

There’s a great flash of light.

With a ragged cry, Gaara collapses against his sister.

In the window, Suna is gone.


End file.
